Krieg Korner - Your Weekly Guide to Heavy

Band: Suidakra

Genre: Melodic Death Metal with Folk Influences

Album: Caledonia (November 17, 2006)

It certainly seems that in the past weeks my musical tongue has taken more of a taste to folk oriented bands. While I am not sure of the validity of this statement, it does have some truth. Maybe it's the murky weather that makes me feel at home with moorish lore, in any case, I never thought it would happen to me.

Regardless, Suidakra is an awesome band with more to them than "folk influences." Their newest release "Caledonia," a name given to Scotland by the Holy Roman Empire, has more folk to it than usual. The most notable touch is the bag-pipes implemented in almost every track. This also explains the bag-pipes.

However, while this is a bit unusual for Suidakra, the band's recognizable characteristics are still evident. Arkaduis' (Suidakra is his name spelled backwards) growl accompanied with the clean vocals, as well as the layered almost choir vocals. The instrumentals are heavy and very technical at many times, particularly at the opening of the song "A Blackened Shield," then switch to a very classical folkish sound while still retaining their crunch, see "The Distant Call."

Overall, I was very impressed with this album. While I did mention in my last review about how the music became boring and repetitive after time, this does not hold true for Suidakra. Once this hits stores, even though it'll probably be impossible to find, I highly suggest picking it up. Even if you're only into Zepplin this will fit nicely into your collection.

Rating: 9/10

Jake "Teh Thor" T.